The Life of the Party
by LynstHolin
Summary: James/Lily   After losing her friend Severus Snape, Lily Evans really isn't in the mood for a party, especially one that the annoying git James Potter is also attending.


Warnings: mild suggestiveness.

...

"You're not inviting your friend? The one that looks like a crow?" Rosie Brown asked.

Lily kept her face still as she applied her eye-liner. "Severus is no longer my friend."

"Really? Why?"

Lily ignored the question. She scanned her outfit in the full-length mirror, front and back-a gauze dress with 'angel' sleeves and a pair of high-heeled slides. "Does this look all right?"

"I've told you, like, five hundred times. You look fine. James will be all over you."

Lily pulled a face. "Maybe I should change, then." She shook her hair until it covered her face. "There."

Rosie rolled her eyes. "James doesn't spend much time looking at faces." She gave Lily a push. "Get away from the mirror. I need to get ready, too."

Lily wandered from the bathroom to her dorm room to sit for a while. The party in the Gryffindor common room was supposed to have started at seven. It was now seven-thirty. Showing up before eight looked nerdy. Not that Lily was in the mood for a party, but if she didn't go, people would realize how badly she was hurting. Her pride wouldn't allow that.

_Mudblood_.

Lily had tried to overlook Sev's increasing obsession with the Dark Arts. She had tolerated his association with Avery and Mulciber, even when he unthinkingly parroted their anti-Muggle-born opinions in front of her. But when he called her _that name_ yesterday, that was it. The end of their friendship. Until then, she had managed to convince herself that Sev didn't really think that way about Muggle-borns, about _her_, but when that horrible word came from his lips, it was like a punch to the gut. Lily would have preferred the punch, actually.

Lily leaned back on her elbows and crossed her legs, dangling one shoe from her toes. The music filtered up from the common room, a thumping disco beat; someone had a stack of Muggle records and a record player. Lily bobbed her head in time, trying to get herself in the proper frame of mind. She knew Rosie had a flask of firewhiskey stowed away in her trunk, but alcohol was as likely to make Lily maudlin as it was to make her feel festive.

Rosie came into the room and stood there staring at Lily with her hands on her hips. Lily gave her an annoyed look. "What?"

"You look like you're on your way to an execution, not a party." Rosie flicked her wand. A pink, glittering swirl issued from the tip and floated to Lily, forming a cloud around her.

"What did you do?" Lily flapped one hand, trying to wave the sparkling mist away from her.

"A little something I invented that I call the Party-Girl charm."

Lily felt the corners of her mouth being drawn up. A fluttering feeling started in her stomach. She sat up straight, her shoulders shimmying to the beat of the music. "Rosie, I am going to _kill you_." She got up from the bed and her hips started to sway. Her arms went above her head and moved sinuously.

Rosie grinned and grabbed her flask of whiskey out of her trunk. "You're welcome!"

The music grabbed Lily and pulled her forward, out of the dorm and down the stairs. The song was Thelma Houston begging her lover to not to leave her unsatisfied. Lily was already dancing the moment she stepped into the common room. The furniture had been pushed back and all the rugs rolled out of the way, creating a good-sized dance floor. No one was dancing on it, though; everyone was just standing awkwardly around the edges. Lily grape-vined to the center and began to boogie. Pink glitter trailed behind her.

Immediately, as if Lily had broken a Stasis spell, the dance floor was filled with bodies. KC and the Sunshine Band's 'Keep It Comin' Love' replaced the Thelma Houston song, and Lily started dancing the Bus-Stop, even though she had never been taught how. Every time one of her feet hit the floor, pink sparks shot from her heels. Within seconds, a dozen people joined in the line-dance. Lily danced through 'Boogie Nights,' 'Dazz,' and 'Shame.'

"Wow. You usually just sit in a chair in the corner at parties. I like this new, improved Lily Evans." It was James Potter, wearing those ludicrous glasses that changed colors with his moods. They were red at the moment. Rosie was right; he wasn't looking at her face. "Wanna dance?"

Lily tried to say no with her mouth, but her feet and hips and arms said yes. A new song started, one with a sexy beat. A deep, purring voice started singing that was nothing short of an aural seduction. _Oh no no no no_, Lily thought, _not a BARRY WHITE song_. James put his arms around her and started swaying with her to the beat. Lily had heard it said that dancing was a vertical expression of a horizontal idea, but she had never truly understood what it had meant before. She blushed as their two bodies moved together in perfect harmony, all too aware that it suggested that they would also be good together in another way.

"I wanna hold you and make you mine, don't want to control you just to have a good time," James sang in her ear. The pink sparkles whirled like a mini-tornado. When James kissed her, Lily wanted to slap him. Instead, she twined her arms around him and kissed him back. The kiss didn't end until the last song played.

...

Upon waking, Lily sat up and froze, remembering what had happened the night before. "So you and James are an item now," Rosie said, sitting on the bed beside Lily.

"Last night doesn't count. I wasn't myself. Your charm... intoxicated me."

"The Party-Girl charm works by removing all the hang-ups that keep you from having a good time. It doesn't make you do things that you don't want to do, it makes you do the things that you really, truly want to do, even if you can't admit to yourself that you want to do them."

"I do _not _want to kiss James Potter! I hate that prat!"

Rosie just smiled and patted Lily on the head before leaving for breakfast. Lily was left alone to stew in her own thoughts, thinking about how very, very much she did not want to kiss James. Again and again and again.

...

Author's notes:

James mood-glasses are wrestlefan4's idea.

HybridChaos suggested that I write fics inspired by random songs from my iPod, and this is one of them. The song is 'The Life of the Party' by the Jackson 5. The Barry White song James sngs is 'Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me'.

I made up Rosie Brown; she's intended to be Lavender Brown's aunt.


End file.
